Over 18,000 students have been admitted to private, unaided non-minority schools in the State under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009.
The Act mandates 25 per cent reservation for children from economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.
According to R. Pitchai, director of matriculation schools, who is also the chief nodal officer for the implementation of the RTE Act in the State, 18,946 students have been admitted in entry-level classes so far. The seats filled, he said, constituted 31 per cent of the reserved seats in the State. In Chennai, 1,067 students have been admitted under the RTE quota.
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This means that close to 69 per cent seats have not been filled.
“This is the first year that the admissions process has been streamlined. Awareness levels among parents need to increase,” he said.
There are a total of 59, 932 seats in entry-level classes across the State. Two rounds of admissions were conducted to admit students.
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Under the first, schools were asked to issue common admission forms free of cost between May 3 and 9 and submit a list of selected students to the district-level authority by May 20. Mr. Pitchai said that 6,128 students were admitted in the first round of admissions.
However, several seats reserved under the RTE quota continued to be vacant even after the first round. Schools cited poor response from parents as a reason, and parents said there was a lack of willingness on the school’s part.
The government then decided to extend the date for admission for the RTE quota to June 20. This time, the forms were distributed to parents and routed to respective schools through the chief education officer’s office instead of parents approaching schools individually.
In the second round of admissions, 12, 818 students were admitted across the State Mr. Pitchai said.
While the highest number of admissions has been made in Coimbatore district (2,172), Perambalur ranked the lowest (53).
According to the directorate, of the 3,250 seats in CBSE schools across the State, 1,025 seats have been filled.